


you live in this

by littletrenchcoatangel



Series: September Challenge 2017 [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hale Family Feels, Pre-Relationship, Spark Claudia Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 11:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11988966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littletrenchcoatangel/pseuds/littletrenchcoatangel
Summary: They plant the tree when Stiles is five. It grows, and so does he.





	you live in this

**Author's Note:**

> haven't seen past the end of the nogitsune stiles season just so y'all know so don't expect none of that shit to come up in here, sorry bye
> 
> start (chapter 1) is written for the challenge, the rest will come later when i've completed it lmao
> 
> title from shakespeare's sonnet 55

They plant the tree when Stiles is five.

"It's a good age to plant a tree," Claudia says, and she even lets Stiles do most of the work. He digs the hole, wets the earth, positions the tree inside it (with a little help, given that he's small for his age) and pats the dirt in around it with his own tiny hands. She lets him hold the hose while she turns on the tap, and she lets him water it until it won't be thirsty anymore, and when they're done, they have a picnic right next to it.

Claudia tells Stiles fairy tales all afternoon, about wolves and dragons and magical adventures, and Stiles falls asleep in the shadow of his very own tree.

A week later, Claudia forgets for the first time.

* * *

Stiles has watered his tree every day for six hundred and seventy four days when his mother is given her official diagnosis. 

He doesn't really understand - all they'll actually tell him is that she's sick - but he knows that it's not good.

So he holds her hand when she comes home, leads her outside to the tree - it's big now, bigger even than dad, because he takes such good care of it - and tells her all the stories she used to tell him, watching her face light up when she remembers what happens next.

At dinner, Stiles helps her set the table, and doesn't understand when she screams at him.

His dad sends him outside to the tree, and he leans against it and cries until he's called back inside. His hands resting on the bark, he wishes that he had a real friend to cry with.

"I'm sorry, son," his dad says, when she ignores him on the drive to the hospital. "I'm sorry."

Stiles meets Scott that night - his mom is a nurse, which is awesome - and they become best friends. Scott comes over all the time and can't stop himself from climbing Stiles' tree.

"We should build a house up here," he says one day. "Then we could live in it forever!"

Stiles laughs, climbing further up the branches, and wishes he could ask his dad to build it for them.

With Claudia so sick, he knows it's impossible.

"That would be awesome," he says instead. "I wish we could."

 

* * *

Claudia gets worse.

Stiles is at school when they come, the other deputies from the station, to tell him that they have to take him to the hospital.

Stiles is already having a bad day - he and Scott got in a fight, when Scott found out that he hadn't asked his dad to build the treehouse, and he's been more fidgety than usual and he can't figure out why - so he's not in the best mood on the drive over. They stop the car twice because he won't stop kicking the seat, and they even radio for his dad to ask for help. Stiles wonders why they don't just take him back to the school.

When he gets there, Claudia barely looks at him. But then, she barely looks at anyone, so Stiles isn't surprised.

"Hi, sweetie," Mrs McCall says, when she comes into the room to check on them. His dad isn't there yet - he got caught up with a work thing, so it's just Stiles and his mom for a little while longer - so Stiles jumps a little when he hears her voice. "You okay?"

"He's fine," Claudia says suddenly, and she reaches out to stroke his hair. "Aren't you, baby?"

"Yeah," Stiles answers. He takes his mom's hand, smiling at her, and starts to feel a little better. "I'm okay."

Mrs McCall smiles, checks all her charts, and leaves. Not long after, Claudia drops his hands. 

"Mom?" he asks quietly.

She doesn't answer.

* * *

 

Stiles is almost eight when they give him his first prescription.

His mom doesn't know about it yet - she lives at the hospital permanently now, she's too sick to come home - and his dad doesn't seem too comfortable with the idea.

"There's nothing else we can do?" he asks, not taking the piece of paper until the doctor forces it into his hand.

"This is the most effective in cases like these," the doctor replies. "But come back in a month. If it isn't working, we'll try something else."

His dad sighs, but he nods.

When they get home, Stiles climbs his tree, right up to the cove where the branches have grown in a little circle, just large enough for him to squeeze into, and stays there until he's called inside for dinner.

He wishes he could just be normal, but he knows that he isn't. 

He's got two friends, and one of them is a tree. Even at eight, Stiles knows that isn't normal. He doesn't hold his breath hoping for anything different.

* * *

 

Lydia Martin joins his class on a Thursday morning. By Thursday afternoon, he's in love.

When he gets home from school, Scott laughs at him because he won't stop talking about her, and Stiles tells him to go home if he's going to be so rude about his future wife.

Scott goes home - mostly because it's getting dark - and Stiles climbs up into his tree with a sharp rock and carves his and Lydia's initials into the highest branch he can reach.

"He'll see," he tells the carving, wiping away the sap as it leaks from the letters. "Lydia and I will be amazing together."

He just hopes she likes him, really.

* * *

 

For a while everything seems okay, except for the few times when Stiles can't go visit his mom cause she doesn't feel up to visitors, even though dad is allowed to sit with her for hours. Usually, when that happens, Scott is around, but today he's with his dad, so Stiles is alone.

He goes wandering, because he couldn't possibly be expected to sit still, and he finds his way over to the emergency department where Scott's mom sometimes works.

She's not working today, but the emergency department seems really busy, and Stiles has to try hard to stay out of the way.

He counts four or five beds roll past, all of them surrounded by multiple nurses yelling different numbers and things Stiles doesn't understand, and he almost gets run over by the next one, but strong hands grab his shoulders and pull him back before the nurses even notice he was there.

"What are you doing down here? Where are your parents?" someone asks, and Stiles turns to see a boy, much taller than him with dark hair and bright blue eyes, staring down at him in confusion and shock. He has a funny silver blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"My mom is upstairs, and my dad is with her," Stiles answers, fingers flying to the cord of his hoodie, since his feet are no longer moving.

"Why are you down here?" the boy asks. Stiles stares at him, not answering, because his eyes suddenly change colour, no longer bright blue, and he's amazed by it.

"Are you magical?" he asks, instead of answering.

"What?"

"Magical," Stiles repeats.

The boy doesn't answer, just shakes his head.

"Where are your parents?" the boy asks again.

"I already told you that," Stiles reminds him carefully, the same way he would his mom. "Do you have dementia too?"

The boy looks very confused, but shakes his head.

"I'll take you to them," he says. "Do you remember where they are?"

"I'm not supposed to go places with strangers," Stiles remembers suddenly. "I'm not even supposed to talk to them."

"I'm not a stranger," the boy says. "I'm Derek."

"Oh," Stiles says, and smiles. "Okay."

Derek takes him back to his mom's room, where his dad is on the phone to someone yelling about filing a missing person's report, and it's Derek who knocks to get his attention.

"Sorry, sir," he says. "But-"

He doesn't get to finish, because Stiles' dad yells his name and races forward, pulling his son into his arms.

"Where the _hell_ have you been?" he asks, putting Stiles back on the floor.

"He was in the emergency department," Derek says, and Stiles turns to smile up at him.

His dad, on the other hand, looks livid.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Derek," Derek says slowly, and he won't meet his eyes. "Derek Hale."

All at once, the fire disappears from Stiles' dad's face.

"Oh," he says. He opens his mouth to say more, but Derek cuts him off.

"It's alright, sir," he says quickly. "I just wanted to get your son back to you safely."

"Thank you, Derek," Stiles' dad returns, and he holds his hand out for Derek to shake. "And... I'm sorry."

Stiles didn't know what his dad was sorry for, but Derek seemed to accept the apology and the handshake anyway, before turning to look at Stiles.

"Try to stay out of trouble, okay?"

Stiles hears his dad laugh, but he nods. "Okay. Thanks, Derek!"

Later, when he's at home, he tells the tree all about the new friend he made, and how he hopes he can see Derek again. He liked Derek. He wants to know more about his magical eyes.

* * *

 

Claudia dies on a Friday, a few weeks after he turns eight.

Stiles is at school when she takes a turn for the worse, but he doesn't find out until after, when Mrs McCall picks him up and drives him to the hospital instead of to her house.

His dad greets him with an "I'm sorry, son" and Stiles knows it's all over.

"Can I see her?" he asks.

His dad leads him into the room, where Claudia is in bed, apparently sleeping.

"Honey," his dad says quietly. "Stiles is here."

"Stiles," his mom whispers. She reaches a hand out without opening her eyes, and Stiles runs to her side. "Sweetheart."

She pulls him to her side, letting him climb up onto the bed with her and curling her arm around him. She whispers his name - his real name - a few times, presses kisses to his head, and Stiles cries.

"Don't go," he pleads. "Please. I love you."

He feels inexplicably tired, but he looks up in surprise when his mother laughs. She hasn't laughed in so long, and even his dad looks surprised at the sound.

"I love you, too, my little prince," she whispers. "So much."

She holds him tight, so much tighter than she ever has, and presses kisses to his hair. Stiles feels it when she starts to drift back to sleep.

"Sleep, darling," she tells him. "It'll all be better soon."

Stiles sleeps.

When he wakes, his mother is gone.

* * *

 

They bury her on the Wednesday, and Stiles gets to take the day off school for it.

Usually, he'd be happy, but having just buried his mother, he doesn't really care.

He climbs his tree, which is so much bigger than he ever remembers it being, and cries until he can't cry anymore.

He kicks at the dead leaves surrounding it, out of place for the time of year, and kicks at them some more when his sadness turns to anger and he remembers that the tree was his mother's idea in the first place.

He kicks the tree until his feet hurt, and then he kicks it some more, until he's scuffed his nice shoes and chipped away a solid chunk of the tree.

He wishes he'd never planted it. He wishes he'd never even had a mother. He wishes he didn't know what sadness was.

His dad calls him inside, and he has cereal for breakfast because there's no proper food to eat.

That night, he has his first nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> this is long enough for the moment but i will edit later and continue it in a following chapter once i've competed my challenge
> 
> for now i'm sorry for making u sad
> 
> unbeta'd so any errors are my own. thanks for reading!


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